Coping With Parkinson’s Disease Successfully

We are not always successful at everything we do but coping with a chronic disease is one time you need to be able to say that you can be successful. Patients are usually in denial when they first receive the news that they have Parkinson’s disease. This denial is a coping mechanism. It can be a shock to discover that you have a disease in which you will not recover but get progressively worse over time. Most of us look forward to getting better and being symptom-free. To learn that you will never be symptom-free again is devastating. Our body kicks in with denial so that we can gain time in which to cope with the news. This is just the first in many ways that our body helps us to cope with Parkinson’s. To learn more coping techniques keep reading this article.

Part of the ability to cope with Parkinson’s is in maintaining functionality as long as possible. Regular physiotherapy can help with giving you the best body functioning possible. To keep your mind alert and functioning try stimulating interaction with friends, neighbors, and relatives on a regular basis. Attend clubs and social events; do volunteer work that not only keeps your hands busy but your mind too. Isolation and depression are destructive to coping mechanisms. If you are a loved one has Parkinson’s and you suspect that depression is starting to grab a hold, seek medical help as soon as possible.

What Do You Want To Know About Parkinson’s Disease?

Like most chronic diseases there is a lot of information about Parkinson’s disease (PD). Parkinson’s is a degenerative, chronic disease that progressively gets worse over time. The disease affects the individual’s motor skills, speech and other bodily functions. Parkinson’s is a disease that fits into the "movement disorders" group of diseases. The characteristic signs of Parkinson’s disease are muscle rigidity, tremors (shakes), a slowing of physical movement (bradykinesia), and akinesia (loss of physical movement, is possible.

Parkinson’s is a movement disorder, so many of the signs and symptoms of the disease have to do with motor symptoms such as tremor, rigidity, absence of movement or a slowness of movement. Gait and posture disturbances are common such as shuffling gait, a decrease in arm-swing, and a stooped, forward-flexed posture, imbalance accompanied by short steps, and a "freezing gait" or inability to move the feet. The individual may also suffer from speech and swallowing disturbances such as a soft speech, or cluttered speech, which occurs because the tongue is "heavy". The person is often accused of having monotonic speech or an excessively rapid, but soft and probably poorly-intelligible speech pattern. An inability to swallow can lead to aspiration, and pneumonia. The individual may suffer from fatigue, a mask-like face, difficulty rolling over in bed or difficulty rising from a seated position. Find and gross motor dexterity and coordination may be difficult and the person may have akathisia, which is an inability to sit still.

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